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US disaster statistics · California

California disaster statistics

California's federal declarations, flood claims and tornado history, charted from FEMA and NOAA data.

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Federal major disasters · California

116

Federal major-disaster (DR) declarations in California since 1954 — 1st-most of the 51 states and DC, and 4.0% of the 2,920 declared nationwide.

Source: FEMA OpenFEMA · 1954–2025

395 federal disaster & emergency declarations since 1954 All declaration types (DR + EM + FM) — 116 were major disasters Source: FEMA OpenFEMA
53,545 NFIP flood-insurance claims since 1978 2.0% of all US flood claims · #9 of 51 states & DC Source: FEMA NFIP
$21k average paid flood claim −49% vs the US average of $42k Source: FEMA NFIP
267 tornado county-segments since 1950 0.33% of the US total · #32 of 51 states & DC Source: NOAA NCEI
$4B severe-weather property damage since 1996 1.0% of the US total (tornado, wind, hail, flood, winter) Source: NOAA NCEI
261 federal wildfire (FMAG) declarations #2 of 41 states with any · 15.9% of the US total Source: FEMA OpenFEMA

Major-disaster declarations in California, per year

035810 1954: 1 major disasters 1955: 1 major disasters 1956: 1 major disasters 1957: 0 major disasters 1958: 1 major disasters 1959: 0 major disasters 1960: 0 major disasters 1961: 1 major disasters 1962: 2 major disasters 1963: 2 major disasters 1964: 2 major disasters 1965: 1 major disasters 1966: 1 major disasters 1967: 1 major disasters 1968: 0 major disasters 1969: 2 major disasters 1970: 2 major disasters 1971: 1 major disasters 1972: 3 major disasters 1973: 1 major disasters 1974: 2 major disasters 1975: 0 major disasters 1976: 1 major disasters 1977: 0 major disasters 1978: 2 major disasters 1979: 2 major disasters 1980: 3 major disasters 1981: 0 major disasters 1982: 3 major disasters 1983: 4 major disasters 1984: 0 major disasters 1985: 1 major disasters 1986: 1 major disasters 1987: 1 major disasters 1988: 2 major disasters 1989: 1 major disasters 1990: 1 major disasters 1991: 2 major disasters 1992: 5 major disasters 1993: 2 major disasters 1994: 2 major disasters 1995: 2 major disasters 1996: 0 major disasters 1997: 1 major disasters 1998: 1 major disasters 1999: 1 major disasters 2000: 1 major disasters 2001: 0 major disasters 2002: 0 major disasters 2003: 1 major disasters 2004: 2 major disasters 2005: 2 major disasters 2006: 2 major disasters 2007: 2 major disasters 2008: 1 major disasters 2009: 0 major disasters 2010: 2 major disasters 2011: 2 major disasters 2012: 0 major disasters 2013: 2 major disasters 2014: 1 major disasters 2015: 2 major disasters 2016: 0 major disasters 2017: 6 major disasters 2018: 3 major disasters 2019: 5 major disasters 2020: 3 major disasters 2021: 2 major disasters 2022: 0 major disasters 2023: 9 major disasters 2024: 4 major disasters 2025: 1 major disasters 195519601965197019751980198519901995200020052010201520202025

Major-disaster (DR) declarations by year, 1954–2025 (72 years shown; years with none are drawn as zero). Since 1954, California accounts for 4.0% of all US major-disaster declarations — 1st of the 51 states and DC. The US as a whole averages about 57 per state.

Source: FEMA OpenFEMA Data as of Download CSV
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Methodology & reuse

Every California figure above is a real, published number aggregated from a federal public-domain dataset — never spun or estimated. Declarations come from FEMA's OpenFEMA DisasterDeclarationsSummaries (one declaration = one distinct disaster number; a multi-state disaster counts once in each affected state). Flood claims are the NFIP claims record; severe-weather and tornado figures are NOAA NCEI Storm Events (tornado counts are county segments, so they run above official tornado totals); hurricane strikes are NOAA's best-track landfall record; wildfire declarations are FEMA Fire Management Assistance (FMAG) grants.

“Compared to the US” lines use the same dataset on both sides: a share is this state's count divided by the national total; a rank orders the 51 states and DC (or, for hurricanes and FMAG, only the states that carry any record); the flood-payout comparison is this state's average paid claim against the national average. Where California has no record for a peril, that stat is simply omitted rather than shown as zero-padded prose.

The underlying datasets are US-government public domain; our charts and tables are licensed CC BY 4.0 — reuse them with attribution to DisasterStatus.

Cite this page

DisasterStatus, “California disaster & property damage statistics” (2026). https://disasterstatus.com/statistics/state/ca

Download the data: California declarations by year (CSV). Explore the national datasets: declarations · flood claims · severe weather · hurricanes · fire.

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